ULTIMATE CLUB 2016/2017 This year marks one of the most successful in the club s history. Beginners Once again the club has had great success at the beginner s tournaments this year. Open to people who have played the sport for less than 6 months, we won gold in Glasgow and finished runners up in Edinburgh. With one of the largest intakes of freshers in our history, we look forward to building on their success in the coming years.
Women s Our Women s side of the club set out this year with one goal in mind: Development. With a squad mostly of beginners, captains Emily Madoff and Gabriela Starek exceeded all expectations and finished the year with the most successful year for St Andrews Women's Ultimate in over half a decade. Achieving 5th at Scottish Indoor Regionals, the squad gained a place at Indoor Nationals in Coventry. Despite half its members falling ill just before the tournament, the team still managed to secure 20th best team in the U.K. After this result, the team refocused in semester 2 to work hard for the outdoors tournaments at the end of the year. Scottish Outdoor Regionals, held at St Andrews, allowed the team to show that they meant business, finishing 4th and qualifying for Division 1 Outdoor Nationals. The nationals, held in Nottingham, saw the Ladies squad once again exceed any prediction. Going into the tournament as 13th seed, the girls battled with top teams and finished as the 6th best University team in the U.K. With only one member of the squad graduating and as this year was always expected to be just a development year, the team s eyes are already set on a podium finish in the near future.
Mixed Despite the Mixed Ultimate tournaments being at all the busiest times of the St Andrews calendar this year, those that could attend the tournaments were invariably a success. With a second place win at Mixed Indoor Regionals (losing only to the eventual National Champions, Glasgow) despite a team missing some of its best players, St Andrews truly stamped its mark on the Mixed scene. After qualifying for Outdoor Nationals to find that the tournament fell over the Easter Break, a small development team travelled to Leicester where they finished 29th in the U.K., toppling various full strength teams who had also qualified. As well as this, the annual Varsity Match against Edinburgh saw St. Andrew's end up on top with a clear win in difficult conditions, finishing the day as one of only two teams to record a win over our Edinburgh rivals!
Men s 1st Team One of the toughest things a team who achieves an outstanding year of results can do is to try and do it all over again a year later. With last year s results still fresh in their minds (BUCS 1A League Champions, Indoor Nationals 3rd Place Finish, Outdoor Nationals 6th Place Finish), the team set out this year with the clear goal of improving. In order to maintain their position as the top University in Scotland, Captain Gabriel Schechter pushed for team fitness and gym work sessions from the first week together to accompany their set training times and the results were soon apparent. Finishing 2nd in BUCS Indoor Regionals, the squad were in a good place as Indoor Nationals approached, and continued their hard work routine every day in preparation. The hard work paid off, the team achieved 1st place and the title of BUCS National Indoor Champions, a result not achieved in many decades. This success continued into the outdoor season, where they went undefeated in the BUCS 1A League to be crowned victors two years running and were undefeated in the SSS Outdoor Championship to be awarded SSS Winners. At Outdoor Nationals, the team dominated in their pool but then lost in the quarterfinal to the eventual National Champions Sussex, meaning they finished the tournament as 7th in the U.K. As well as these standings, the Men s 1sts were voted the Best Spirited Team in both the SSS and Outdoor Nationals events. Captain Schechter, who has been elected as captain once again for the 2017/18 season, has already turned his attention to next year s team in order to start the work to attempt to better these results.
Men s 2nd Team Having just lost out on going to BUCS Outdoor Nationals last year, the second team came into this season with high hopes of bettering their previous performance. During Indoor Regionals they finished higher than a Scottish second team had ever finished before, only losing out on a place to Nationals in a sudden death loss against Aberdeen s first team. Overall they finished in 8 th place, successfully toppling some other universities firsts. As the only second team in the BUCS Scottish 1A League, the seconds once again exceeded expectations to finish higher than both Stirling and Aberdeen and secure a place in the BUCS Conference Cup. Here, they finished in 6 th place, beating the only other second team in the Conference (Sussex 2 s) comfortably, 11-2. As a team predominantly made up of freshers, the development and experience gained could prove invaluable in next year s push for further success. Club The club this year held its inaugural Monday League, which proved to be a great success. Mixed teams were randomly selected at the beginning of the year and each week the teams would compete in a league system for the title of Monday League Champions!
This year, we have had 6 current members and 1 alumni be selected to be a part of the Great Britain Under 24 Development Squad, and 1 member selected for the Under 24 Irish Development Squad, a superb achievement for these individuals. Should they be selected to play for their countries, they will be playing in Australia in the U24 World Championships in the near future. Members of the club have also gone on to have success at club level tournaments. Two members from both our Men s and Women s team were selected for the U.K. s top Outdoor Mixed Team, the Black Eagles. Already, they have helped Black Eagles in their recent double wins at National Level Mixed Tournaments, and hope to continue their success. We wish both our International and Club Level players the very best of luck in their future training and competition. Website: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/sport/performance/programmes/ultimate/ Email: frisbee@saints-sport.com